How to protect your finances during divorce or dissolution

If you’re getting divorced or dissolving your civil partnership you may have to act quickly to protect your finances – especially if the break-up is difficult and you are on bad terms. You may not need to take all the steps outlined below, but it’s important that you know your rights and responsibilities.

Protecting the rights to your home if you own

If the family home is owned in your ex-partner’s sole name, you can register your interest to make sure it cannot be sold or remortgaged without you being told.

This is especially useful if your break-up is a difficult one and you no longer get on with your ex-partner.

The legal name for registering your interest and how you go about it will depend on whereabouts in the UK you live.

If the property is in both your names, as ‘joint tenants’ – or as ‘joint owners with a survivor-ship destination’ in Scotland – you might want to change the way it’s owned.

You can still own it between you, but the reason you might want to do this is to stop your ex-partner from automatically inheriting your share of the property if you were to die before the divorce or dissolution was finalised (and vice versa).